Building of the Day: 404 Tompkins Avenue

(Photograph: Christopher Bride for Property Shark, 2012)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Retail storefront w/ flats
Address: 404 Tompkins Avenue
Cross Streets: Jefferson and Hancock Streets
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: 1887
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect: J.C. Burne
Landmarked: No, but part of calendared Bedford HD (2012)

The story: This humble storefront and flats building is home to an American icon now known around the world. It’s the home of the Teddy Bear. Yep, Bedford Stuyvesant is home to the cuddly stuffed animal now known around the world, a toy that has delighted children for over one hundred years, and made fortunes for more than a few adults, in some way, shape or form, for that same amount of time. Here’s the story:

The year was 1902. President Theodore Roosevelt was invited on a hunting trip in Mississippi by that state’s governor. During the hunting trip, a black bear was captured, beaten, and tied to a tree for Roosevelt to kill. He thought it unsportsmanlike for him to do so, and refused. (Although he did have them put the bear out of its misery.) By the time the story made the political cartoons, the bear had shrunk to a cub, and the story of Teddy sparing a little baby bear cub had made him a hero.

Here in Brooklyn, Rose and Morris Michtom, two Russian Jewish immigrants who had a storefront and apartment here at 404 Tompkins, saw the cartoon and the story of Teddy Roosevelt and the bear, and decided to come up with a commemorative toy. The Michtom store sold candy and small items, including toys and stuffed animals that Rose Michtom made herself, at night after hours. In the above photo, 404 is in the center, with the white shades, the storefront long ago modernized.

The Michtom bear was of velvet, with shoe button eyes. In honor of the president, Morris called it the “Teddy Bear”, and put it in his store window. It sold the next day, and people wanted more. He wrote to the President to get permission to use his name, which Roosevelt gave him, writing that he didn’t think it would come to much. For once the great man was wrong. The bears sold faster than Rose could sew them, and they soon gave up the store and started selling Teddy Bears full time. Roosevelt used the Michtom bear as a symbol of his re-election campaign in 1904, and soon photographs and the Teddy Bears themselves were everywhere.

The Michtom’s founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company in 1907, to manufacture and market the bears. It was an American success story. In 1938, they became the Ideal Toy Company, and in their long history, manufactured some of the baby boomer’s favorite toys ever, such as the Teddy Bear, Chrissy, Betsy Wetsie, Howdy Doody, and the Magic 8-Ball, which is still made. The family held the company through the 1970’s. Through a series of mergers and buyouts, they became part of Tyco, which was acquired by Mattel.

Although Richard Stieff invented his own bear at about the same time, in Germany, the two companies were unaware of each other. Stieff would go on to great success, and may be the better bear, but the American Teddy Bear holds its own, this Bed Stuy bear, and the original is now at the Smithsonian. GMAP

(This story was first told to me by Morgan Munsey, of Save Bedford Stuyvesant. Thanks, Morgan!)